


Ramble On

by siehn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 19:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siehn/pseuds/siehn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't know how to live this life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ramble On

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for 5.22, and the beginning of 6.
> 
> Written for the April Showers: Prompt 1 at day_by_drabble on Lj.

_April is the cruellest month, breeding  
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing  
Memory and desire, stirring  
Dull roots with spring rain.  
(T.S. Eliot, "The Waste Land")_

Sometimes, in the winter when the ground is covered in snow, and everything’s dead around him, he gets to wondering.

 _What the fuck am I doing?_

The bare trees, and the dull, lifeless world full of shades of grey, and there’s no color, anywhere, and it’s all he can do in the mornings just to get up, get out of bed, and face a world that doesn’t have his brother in it anymore. Sammy died to save the world, but he isn’t the one who has to face the empty roads he left behind, alone.

He remembers, in these moments, the promise he made.

 _Live the good life; the safe life._ The life he’s never lived, and doesn’t know how to.

He’s been to Hell, and an angel pulled him out; he survived the Apocalypse, and now he’s back in Hell, except this time the torture is entirely different. He can’t help but think this is worse, somehow, and God help him --except God’s a dick, and doesn’t give a fuck-- but he almost wishes he were back down there, in the Pit, left to rot under Alastair’s tender mercies because then Sammy would be here, and not there, and Dean wouldn’t have to _know_ what’s happening to him.

He thinks that’s the thing of it, really; that’s what has him itching to find a fucking crossroads, and re-sell his fucking soul.

 _Used soul, buy it cheap!_ He wouldn’t even ask for a year this time.

Sam’s in Hell, and Dean’s been there; he knows what they do to VIP’s. (He was a good student; Alastair let him out to play for the special guests.)

 _Damaged soul; first come, first serve._ Maybe they’d take it for free.

Except.

Except Sam would kick his fucking ass, and yeah, Dean went to Hell for Sam, but Sammy? Well, he just couldn’t leave it at that, he had to go down for the _whole goddamned world_ , and Dean knows he can’t just spit in the face of that.

He watched his little brother beat the fucking Devil, and he’s not going diminish the weight of Sam’s sacrifice just because he can’t stand to live without him.

The crossroads demons won’t deal anyway. (Hell doesn’t want Dean anymore.)

So he gets up in the mornings, cooks breakfast for Lisa, and Ben, because they let him in, and they don’t seem to mind too much that he’s broken, and used up, and so much of a mess.  
He faces a world that doesn’t have his brother in it; a world that doesn’t know the name Samuel Winchester, or that he saved the world, and he lives. He watches the snows melt, thaw slowly, and turn to water all around him.

It’s April, and the color is coming back; the trees are green, and just yesterday he saw a few tentative flowers blooming in the field across the street where Ben and his friends play ball. He wonders if there are flowers in Stull, on what amounts to Sam’s grave, thinks there probably are.

 _You always were a giant girl._

He says goodbye to Lisa on a Thursday --she isn’t surprised-- and hits the road again because someone has to be out there, saving people, hunting things; keeping on with the family business. Dean doesn’t really know how to do anything else, and he thinks Sam might forgive him, one day.


End file.
